Coven Raider Update

Here's an update for my Coven Raider project, but it's been so long since I posted it that I figure this may be the first time that some people are seeing the project.

My concept for the Coven Raider was something a little more than the common Raider+Tentacles. Though it was a little more expensive than slapping some tentacles on a Raider, I wanted to have a Raider that was powered by a Talos. My idea was a bit like the Talos would be pulling the Raider, except it would be built into the body.

Feel More Pain: Wracks' Pain Counters Done

They were pretty far along when last I posted my first update about them, but the Pain Counters for the Wracks squad are now complete. 

I have a good deal of love for the Grotesque squad's pain counters as they were my first and they helped me pioneer the idea of the counter representing one victim becoming more twisted by pain. Still, I think that I'm happier with how these guys came out. They seem a little cleaner (in terms of construction) than the former, while also seeming more messy (in terms of the scenes being depicted).

That being said, for my next set of pain counters, I'm going to go back to the idea of the victim becoming a testament to pain: a kind of twisted sculpture. While working on the coven, I've become obsessed with the whole "external spine" idea, and I think I can get decent milage out of a face-down victim whose spine is turning into a veritable work of art growing out of his back.

Until then, let's take some more looks at these guys. I'm happy these pain counters gave me the chance to get more hemavores out on the field. I think these things are super creepy, but they are in no way present in most of the Coven kits. I look forward to trying to remedy that by sculpting many more of them.

The Shambling Masses: Wracks. Done.

There wasn't a whole helluvalot changed since my last update on the Wracks, but I am happy to say that they are now DONESKI! I hope that the gentleman who commissioned them will be well pleased with how they turned out. Both they and the Grotesques wound up being far bigger a project than either one of us had expected, but, for me, that is mostly because I wound up putting a lot more work into them than I had expected they'd need.

Fortunately, I'm happy with the finished product, and I will be sad to see them go when it comes time to send them on their way to their new owner.

For now, though, here are some photos of them. I've been working on my model photography as well, and the addition of an external flash has opened up whole new worlds of glorious lighting to me. Though I could have gone in and edited the colours a bit, these turned out pretty well for a straight shot-to-net process.

Coven Wracks Update

The Wracks are the next unit from Bob's Big Bad Haemonculus Coven that are nearing completion.

As a couple of them have been pretty much done for a while, I focused more on the ones who have come a long way of late for this update.

First up, Sir Inspired by 300!

MORE PAIN.....counters

Hydra's been visiting here for the last week or so, and on Thursday we put in a solid day of modeling together on various projects. Call me a dork, but it's fantastic to work like that with a good friend. Anyway, it's late, and we've got a game of space hulk to play, so I'll cut to the chase. While working on the Wracks squad, I started in on the squad's pain counters, and then, surprisingly, they were near done in just a few hours. I blame Hydra, entirely, and his magnificent tools.

It got to the point where I was feeling a little sick/disgusted at making them, and I figure that's a good indication. Just like the last pain counters, these are meant to be a progression on a single victim. Rather than ranking up 2 or 3 separate counters beside a squad, you replace the "1" counter with the "2" one as the squad accrues more counters, and then replace the "2" with the "3" one. Though they don't have numbers on them, I think they're pretty obvious >:)

The Way of PAIN...counters

To compliment my recently completed Grotesque unit, I finished off the Pain Counters I'd shown earlier. Instead of each of them representing one pain counter each, my idea was for them to be a progression: one victim being put through successively worse pain that was twisting his mangled frame. I'm really happy with the effect, and I can't wait to start on the next set of pain counters for the Wracks squad. That one will feature some Haemavores.

Grotesques from Bio-Terrors: Mission Accomplished

Well, last June I started in on my first models for the Haemonculus Coven, and they were destined to be Grotesques. I based them on Paulson Games' Bioterror models, and from four identical models, I managed to squeeze out the four following original poses:

Grotesques complete!

More images and information soon, but for now it's time for a happy dance!

Grotesques Nearing Completion

I can see the light!

After what seems an age of off-and-on work, my Grotesques are finally getting near done. It's amazing how the addition of a couple of arms gives far more bearing and direction to the models. At this point, I need to sculpt one more freaky arm on one of them, featuring a creepy hypodermic bit, then finish up the freaky hand for the squad leader, and after that all that should be left is connecting things up with a few sculpted details, and {deep breath} they should be done!

Man, doing this kind of work on a multiple-unit level can get to be a pain in the butt!

It's seriously rewarding, though. Just as I was starting to feel like I was losing some steam on the Grotesques, I decided to finally attach their arms, and just that small change got me juiced about them again. In fact, I daresay I'm damn proud of the way they are coming along.

Anyway. Enough jabber. Onto the model shots. I apologize the lighting is a little jumped, but I'm not photographing them in my standard workspace.

How Grotesque!

As a follow-up to last week's Flesh Friday, here is the progress I've made on the Grotesques. I feel that the progress on the Wracks has been more transformative, overall, while any progress on the Grotesques has been small and fiddly. That being said, I gave then a similar photographic treatment to the one I've given the Wracks, so at least this will give you a better look at them:

First up, the squad leader is got a case of the Banes:

WRACKing my brain for more puns

This has all lain dormant for far too long, and I'm not sure I can really blame the trip back across the Atlantic and Christmas/New Years for it anymore.

Fortunately, though I haven't updated the bloggerino in quite some time, I have not been idle. So, with this return to Flesh Friday also comes an update on my progress with the Wracks!

And what an update it is as four of the little nasties are now nearing completion. Huzzah!

These two kids you've seen before, though they've come a little further:

A Recipe for Wracks

As you may have noticed, I've been posting stuff about pain counters and Grotesques and Raiders for the coven, but one of the main staples of a Coven force--the Wrack--has been conspicuous in its absence. However, that's not for lack of ideas. When Bob-o and I were sitting around brainstorming ideas for how to create things like Grotesques and Wracks before GW released their Finecast versions, I took a trawl through all of the plastic kits GW made with my thinking cap on, and I came up with a magical formula for Wracks:

Flagellant Legs

+Bloodletter torso, back spine, and 1 horn; 1 Savage Orc Bow:

A Strong Case of the 'Roids

I'm about to duck out the door to Paris for the Norn Queen's birthday (WOOT!), but before I do, I thought I'd put this update into the can for Flesh Friday (yeah, it's a new thing I'm trying to stay on target). I've only had one day to work on on the Coven since I started in on the pain counters, so I thought I'd use it to return to some shambling constructs who hadn't seen any love in a long while: the Grotesques!

Power from Pain: Coven Pain Counters

I've been rolling around ideas for pain counters for the coven for some time. One of the things I love most about the Haemonculus covens is the way that they seem to twist and sculpt bone and spines. I started thinking about how this sculpting must be driven by pain, so what better way to represent pain counters than with a victim who is being sculpted into some kind of grisly trophy by the pain that a squad is collecting?

Hideous? Certainly! And, for that reason, perfect for the Coven >:)

Back to the Coven: A Haemonculus Raider

Well, it's been a BLOODY long time since I posted anything here, and my only explanation/excuse for it was moving between three countries in under a two month span (Japan -> Canada -> England).  Now that I've finally settled here in the UK for the next couple of months, I've been using my free time to get back to work on the Coven.

And I jumped right in with one of my whackier ideas: creating a Haemonculus Coven Raider by crossing it with a Talos. I came up with two separate concepts, and I feel like this is the more normal of the two (I can't wait to get to the second concept as it's a little more grizzly). Here's another time lapse video showing some of my progress on the raider:



Though my first concept for the Coven raider was a Talos fused to the front of a Raider, as if it were driving it or towing it, I wanted to give the thing a slightly different profile than just a Raider+Talos.

Spinal - A Grotesque Update--NOW in 3-D!

Okay, so maybe that 3D bit's a lie, but it is the case that I felt bad for not updating the Grotesque project on Friday, as I had been doing for the last two weeks, so I decided to use a new toy that just came in the mail to create a time-lapse-style video of me at work. It's the first time I've ever done anything like this, and the angle is a bit pants, but I thought folks might find it fun.
Featuring the sounds of fine, fine Canadian group MSTRKRFT. If you like the music, look them up. You won't regret it. Back to the video, though: I think that, should I do this again, I'll probably learn a lot from this initial outing.

So anyway, yeah: I got some more work done on the Grotesques this week, but not as much as I was hoping. Lesson? Don't predict that a week is going to be great for working until after it already has been!

Here are some pictures of the team in their current state:

Grotesques from Bioterrors: Progress Report

This past week has been a pretty busy one (weekends included), so I've made only modest progress on roughing out the poses and starting the most rudimentary of repositionings on the first unit of Dark Eldar Grotesques from the Paulson Bio Terror models. Though they're not much more to look at, the work has given me a really strong idea for the role of each member of the unit.

Though there hasn't been that much progress, I think that repositioning the various Grotesques is essential as the fact that they all came from the same model will really start to show if I left the Bio Terrors as is.

Paulson Bio Terror Review and Grotesques

Something exciting arrived in the mail on Thursday:

...apparently shipped at the SPEED OF LIGHT from the 'States as it made it here to Japan in just under a week. It's my first order from Paulson Games, and with service like that, I'm sure to be a repeat customer!

Here are the contents, still all mysteriously and protectively packaged:


And here's what they yielded:

That's right, baby! Time to unleash some Paulson Games' brand Bio Terror on the world. I've thought that this model would make THE PERFECT basis for Dark Eldar Grotesques since the instant I laid eyes on it. As the Finecast release approached, I awaited pictures of the GW Grotesques with equal parts excitement and trepidation: excitement because they're concept art was so fantastic, and trepidation because I really wanted an excuse to mess around with some Bio Terrors, and if GW put out nice Grotesques, I'd have little reason to (aside from price, that is--YIKES!).

Then this was released...